baby's breath

I am already in a drugged fog as I unlock the door to the house where I used to spend my childhood holidays. This is no longer unusual for me; I’ve grown accustomed to the velvet buzzing that fills my head on a nearly hourly basis these days. Tonight, however, my hands tremble as I twist the key, and it takes me three tries to remember the trick to getting the door open. The quiet thumping in my chest has turned begun to rattle my entire body by the second attempt, my body tense, waiting to see his headlights come around the corner. I forgot to leave a light on when I left. Stupid bitch, I curse myself. Should have remembered. Or better yet, should have stayed home, safe in the cave of your bedroom.

The house is abandoned tonight, and only shadows greet me. Only shadows, and yet something else makes me uneasy, something darker and deeper than the blackness of the unit hall. I feel my palms sweat, and turn into my makeshift bedroom, locking the door. I turn the light on, then change my mind, despite my fear, and shut it off. There are fresh, open wounds in my being, and after weeks of being hunted, I want to curl up in the quiet night to lick them.

I pull my clothes off, and the majority of the predator’s reek along with them. I turn down the blanket on my bed, and when my bare skin hits my jersey sheets, a new scent fills my head. Blood. I don’t need the light to see the stains. I am left with nothing but ruined sheets, and somewhere miles away, his are wet only with pleasure. Something in my stomach kicks. People speak of feeling phantom limbs after the real ones are gone- what about phantom fetuses? I put my hand on my graveyard of a belly, and I know who gutted me. There is a large hollow to fill, and I slant my blinds open just enough to let a sliver of moonlight in. Illuminated in it I find exactly what I need; a slim orange bottle half filled with white tablets like flower petals. My hands shake and tip the bottle over too far, spilling all of the contents into my cupped palm. I mean to return all but two milligrams, but somehow in my hand the petals arrange themselves into blossoms of baby’s breath. I freeze, staring down at them.

The next time I feel the stirrings behind my navel, something in my chest snaps, and my lips break apart as I tip my head back and pour, pour, pour the pills into my mouth. They instantly begin to blossom, stale and almost lemony on my tongue, which is frozen, unwilling to swallow and silence itself. I am curled in a ball in the nest of my sheets, a naked, broken baby bird, when I see her. She walks out of the darkness of my closet and climbs into bed with me, fits herself against my back, the woman who has not slept here with me in almost three years now. She gently reaches around, takes the bottle with the remaining seeds of quiet inside it, and whispers in my ear, plant them. And I do.